Adventure
in Weathered Metal

Academy 1/72 Republic P-47D Thunderbolt

Working with one of the recent updates of this site I noticed to my
dismay that although I constantly keep writing articles for this
magazine, it’s been over three years since I have shown any of my own
models on these pages! Please be assured that I do build
models, and occasionally get a few of them finished, too...

My latest finished project has been a P-47, and since this is perhaps the last
occasion to impress anyone with a non-Tamiya 1/72 Thunderbolt, I’d
better give it a go… so here it is: my Academy “Razorback” P-47D.

A little bit of history

I won’t tire you with quoting general historical background of the
P-47, this has been done so well by many writers before me. However, I
cannot resist a short comment on the origin of the nickname Jug.
Opinions vary as for where that name comes from. The most prevailing
opinion seems to be that this is a short form of Juggernaut.
This word comes from India and is one of the names under which Vishnu,
in his incarnation as Krishna, is worshiped by the Hindus. In Western
languages, it found its use as a poetic metaphor of an overwhelming,
advancing force that crushes everything in its path. Supposedly crews
gave that name to the P-47 in admiration to its strength and
ruggedness.

It's a romantic story, but I find this explanation very hard to
believe. Juggernaut? This could possibly be an invention of some war
correspondent or a post-war publicist. What bothers me is that a word
such as this doesn’t seem to match the Army mentality - either today or that of
the 1940s. It is enough to browse through other nicknames of US
aircraft to see that they were always picked from an entirely different
vocabulary: Iron Dog (P-39), Son of a Bitch 2nd Class
(SB2C), Spam Can (P-51), Turkey (TBF), Baltimore Whore
(B-26) or Pinball (RP-63).

Greg Goebel of the Air Vectors states that the nickname Jug
was not in common use during the war and that the only nicknames the
P-47 had during the conflict were "Bolt" or "T-Bolt". That may be true.
Another explanation is that the Jug refers to the aircraft’s
resemblance to a beer jug commonly seen in English pubs. Squadron’s
P-47 in Action claim that it’s the aluminium milk jug that
triggered the association. Perhaps we will never know for sure, but my
two cents' worth is that it never had anything to do with Hindu
mythology!

Is this a Jaggernaut? Doesn't look that to me... a milk jug, maybe.

The kit

In the Gentlemen's scale of 1/72 we have been blessed with a good
choice of P-47 kits. By now you have probably heard of Tamiya’s
latest offering, which I expect to be no less than formidable. Other
alternatives out there are Hasegawa (both Razorback and Bubbletop),
Academy (ditto), Revell (late P-47D/M) and Italeri (P-47N).

The Hasegawa kits are the oldest and simplest of the lot, being one
of the first tools of that company featuring recessed panel detail.
They are generally correct in outline, even though the panel lines have
are drawn in a grossly simplified manner - if you care about such
things. These kits are also very easy to build. One problem is that
only the Curtiss propeller is provided in the box; another is the empty
cockpit and wheel wells crying for some additional detail. The
bubbletop version’s canopy is also incorrect in shape, lacking the
characteristic "collar" of the lower frame.

The Academy kit is like Hasegawa on steroids – the same shapes,
sizes and parts breakdown, but a lot more interior and surface detail,
plus more options – a choice of Curtiss and Hamilton Standard
propellers, solid or spoked wheels, underwing stores. In summary,
excellent kits that are a pleasure to put together. Common to all
Academy and Hasegawa kits is one dimensional error, albeit easy to
correct, main undercarriage legs which are way too long.

In 1999, Revell of Germany released their own rendition of a
bubbletop P-47, the kit allowing building a late D or M models with
the broad-chord Curtiss propeller. This kit has been widely praised
ever since for its great engineering, the level and finesse of detail
which is superior to all other Thunderbolt kits in this scale. Unfortunately, it suffers
from visible dimensional errors: too deep belly, too long tail and too
narrow fuselage which combined make the finished model look out of
proportion.

Recent addition to the family of P-47 kits is Italeri’s P-47N, but I
cannot comment on it since I haven’t yet seen it.

Picking the subject

I like the look of Razorback T-Bolt over the bubbletop version, if
for no other reason than for that magnificent Art Deco
windscreen. The choice of kit was therefore simple – Academy.

My subject is a P-47D-22-RE ser.no. 42-26044 Silver Lady from
61st Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group, operating from Boxted in
England during 1944. This aircraft was originally assigned to major
Leslie Smith, but during the summer of 1944 it was flown by an array of
other pilots, including James M. Jure, Robert J. Rankin, Cleon E.
Thomton, Witold Lanowski and Mike Gladych.

For painting, I thought that a natural metal finish combined with
colourful markings would look presentable, and having discovered the
scheme of Silver Lady on the Techmod decal sheet I thought it
would fit the bill well.

Every modelling project is as an opportunity to learn something
new, and this time, my main interest was combining natural metal
finish with weathering techniques. Because of this I
opted to leave all the resin accessories for the P-47 I had lying in my
drawer for later to facilitate quick construction of the model.

I even decided to go one step further and limit myself purely to the
out-of-the-box build so that I could enter the model in OOTB categories
in contests. In the event it proved more difficult than I thought – I
guess it is not quite my way of doing modelling. The only additions, most
of the times permitted by contest rules, were the photoetched seat belts,
antenna wire and puttied-over wheel hubs. In the end I also couldn’t
resist sanding down the "flat" on the tyres somewhat to reflect the
weight of a loaded aircraft.

Building the model

All I can say is that the Academy kit is outstanding in terms of
fit. In mere two evenings I had the airframe of the model assembled and
polished for the metal coat, a personal record! The only minor flaws of
the moulding were the slight sink marks on the lower surface of the
flaps, but nothing really serious so they could be left as they were.

The only minor difficulty during assembly was shortening the
undercarriage legs. To get that proper “sit” of the Bolt these items
need to be shortened considerably. After some measurements, lot of
dry-fitting and advice from Darrell Thompson (who has done it before,
thanks Darrell), I cut the legs down to 19,5mm measuring from the highest
to the lowest point of the part, and I think that I got it about right
for a fully fuelled and armed aircraft. Shortened legs were somewhat
difficult to align, so a slow-setting glue and Mk. 2 Eyeball were
promptly used to ensure prefect symmetry and correct angles.

Academy provides both solid and spoked wheels in the box, however
the solid ones feature funky hub centre detail that shouldn't be there.
I simply filled these with putty and sanded smooth.

Painting

As I mentioned, the weathering was perhaps the most interesting
phase of
this project. It is now widely accepted that scale models should be
“weathered” to reflect changes to the factory-new finish due to use,
accumulating dirt and exposure to the elements. That applies easily
to any painted surface, but have you ever thought if and how a natural metal
aircraft gets "weathered"? Does the metal get
scratched or worn off in areas? I wanted to go one step beyond the
conventional wisdom which tells to apply as smooth and glossy silver
metal finish as possible.

Whatever the weathering, I started with a solid, shiny natural
metal base finish. It was applied with Alclad II Aluminium, used “by the book”
over a mirror-gloss black undercoat. When the Aclad coat dried, I tried to emphasize selected
panels with Alclad’s Dark Aluminium, but for whatever reason the effect was not noticeable. Therefore I repeated the task with Tamiya
Titanium Silver, applied with
mists of varying density. Titanium Silver is Tamiya’s “new” silver
acrylic and I can recommend it without hesitation, it gives a perfectly
smooth surface in class with Alclad, without the latter’s smelly fumes. Admittedly it is a little less glossy, but it really could be
used for a good NMF finish on its own.

The remaining colours were a miscellany of different paints. The red
rudder and front cowling are Xtracolor Post Office Red. The anti-glare
was shaded with two Olive Drab shades, that of Gunze and Tamiya. The
invasion stripes were Gunze paints, mixed to own interpretation of
off-black and off-white. The wheel wells were painted with a mixture of Tamiya
Chromate Green and yellow. Lastly, cockpit interior was another
household interpretation of Bronze Green, Zinc Chromate and grey.

The Techmod decals looked great and worked satisfactorily, if not
quite responsive to MicroSol. The national insignia were taken from
another sheet by Supercale. I prefer the “used” look of white
star insignia on Superscale sheets over the surgically white shade of
many other decal brands of today.

The canopy received the usual bath in Future floor wax. After
leaving the coating to set for about a week the framing was airbrushed
on using Eduard’s canopy masks. These masks are a real time saver.

Weathering

I find myself using airbrush for more and more for weathering work in favour of other techniques,
so even this time.

The whole idea with the project was depicting a dirty aircraft – Go
dirty or go home! Well, not just dirty in general, but using the
knowledge of the subject and the available references. I have spent
quite a lot of time studying photos of various natural metal aircraft for signs of
use so I felt prepared.

Most Thunderbolts had a prominent dirty stains aft of the
overpressure valves of the supercharging system (the ones in front
of the wing roots). These were promptly applied to the model, but
the is more. Oil leaks at the lower cowling, dust and mud at the
lower wing surface in the vicinity of the undercarriage, mud in the
tyre threads, gasoline stains on the extra tank were added
one-by-one until a convincing overall effect was achieved. The trick
is using right colour shades for the different stains (not just
Tamiya Smoke :-) and achieving patterns that are random yet follow
the laws of physics.

The weathering was applied with the airbrush, combined with various
brush techniques. For example, the oil stains were sprayed on in a mist
form, then worked on with a microbrush and Q-tip moisted with thinner.
The latter could be done pretty heavy-handed, as the Alclad proved
completely impervious to both acrylic and enamel thinners.

The main subject focal point of the weathered model were to be the
washed-away invasion stripes on top surfaces of the wigs and
fuselage. As is widely known, the D-Day stripes were initially
painted both top and bottom, but after the invasion the orders soon
changed, calling for removal of the stripes from top surfaces of all
aircraft. This sounded easier than it was done; in the field,
different units coped with the task in different ways, sometimes
washing away the stripes, sometimes overpainting them. Photo
evidence shows that both methods were applied also on natural metal
aircraft, the paint used being either aluminium or any other colour
at hand. Washing away the stripes, it was difficult to achieve
entirely clean results, whereupon leftover stains were a common
occurrence. It is the latter effect that I wanted to replicate on
the model.

Somebody had a hard job rubbing away these stripes...

To achieve the "washed-away" appearance, the stripes were masked
as for regular painting - first the black, then white ones. The
stripes were airbrushed using a very thinned paint, resulting in a
mere "filter" on top of the metallic surface. Even with this
technique, the pure black and white would produce too much contrast,
so I substituted these colours with dark grey and Titanium Silver.
Without much delay, the masking was then removed and the paint
partially diluted and removed with a technique called sponging
- touching the surface with a cotton swab soaked with thinner in a
tapping motion. The results can be judged from the photos, I for one
was very pleased with the way they turned out!

Using a sponging technique the effect can be worked until it it
disappears, so knowing when to stop is essential. I was after a
subtle effect, yet one which suggested the shape of the original
stripes.

Additional scratches and patina on the metal surfaces, especially
the areas near the wing roots which were walked on the real
aircraft, were produced using a pencil. First, the scratches were
drawn randomly (and densely) on the surface. Then , they were
smoothed out by rubbing with a tip of the finger. The result not
only looked good, but also proved resilient to handling even on a
smooth Alclad surface, so no extra clear coat was necessary to
protect the pencil work. I was grateful for that as any clear coat
would mean substantial risk of spoiling that elusive look of the
metal.

Scratches and marks at the worn area at the wing root were done with
pencil and a fingertip. Note also the oil streaks behind the engine,

A dark wash was applied to control surface division lines and
various vents around the fuselage to enhance the impression of
depth. I have refrained from some general shading of panel
lines, I just didn't feel it was necessary and besides, it seldom
looks natural to me.

Finals

Although I don't display my models on diorama bases, I like to
add a detail or two to put the model into context. The Jeep shown on
some of the pictures is an Academy 1/72 model, finished
out-of-the-box sans the oversized steering wheel which was replaced
by a photoetched part from the spares. I also scratchbuilt some
stuff to put into the car: an oil-soaked rag, a wrench, an old
bucket, wooden toolchest and some papers.

I applied the antenna wire from fine monofilament, only to learn
afterwards from a discussion forum that by 1944, P-47s in Europe had
HF radios with whip antennae only. I always knew there was a good reason
why I should keep buying all those reference books!

Additional images, click to enlarge

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